The Transatlantic Slave Trade

The triangular trade thereby gave a triple stimulus to British industry. The Africans were purchased with British manufactures; transported to the plantations, they produced sugar, cotton, indigo, molasses and other tropical products, the processing of which created new industries in England; while the maintenance of the Negroes and their owners on the plantations provided another market for British industry.

The Transatlantic Slave Trade, or the Triangular Trade, connected trade between North America, Africa, and Europe. From America, plantation crops such as tobacco and cotton was sent to Europe. From Europe, manufactured goods like cloth and guns were shipped to Africa. From Africa, African slaves—men, women and children-- were transported to America.

This dominating industry brought in huge profits to the home countries but at a cost, the islands went through labors like a kid with candy and this labor need started a gigantic trade network called the triangular trade. The triangular trade worked by shipping goods from Western Europe to West Africa to be exchanged for slaves, these slaves were then shipped to the West Indies (Caribbean Islands) and traded for sugar, rum and other commodities, which were then sent back to Western Europe. The Atlantic Slave Trade affected Europe in many different ways that included spreading christianity to the new world, caused an economic boom in Spain and Portugal that lead to inflation and paved the way for modern

[x] France for example has created New France in Canada and also down into Florida and Spain had a large portion of Mexico and Southern America. [xi] These new colonizes helped create trade between the New and Old World. Government ventures lended money for explorers to set forth and trade in the West and elsewhere.[xii] This also led to the role of mercantilism in the Atlantic as well. They helped promote overseas trade between a country and its own colonizes.[xiii] As they controlled more trade, different trading companies began to emerge in response to mercantilism. The Dutch West Indian Company and the royal African Company chartered by their motherlands all participated in a system which included other non- European countries as well. This system was known as the Atlantic Circuit which was a clockwise network of trading links that moved goods, wealth and people around the Atlantic system.[xiv] This helped make the slave trade more efficient because now a vast amount of slaves could be transported to their specific destinations as requested by a country. As document 8 shows, the slaves which came from Africa each followed a specific route in the Atlantic Circuit. [xv] tying in with document 4 the work that had to be done on the plantation was a lot and that is why with the help of city ports in Africa they were able to get a large number of slaves to help in the Americas. An example of the type of work they did can be

The transatlantic slave trade first began in 1502, with records of the first slaves in the New World, lasting nearly four centuries. It connected the economies of three continents. The route began in West Europe, where it continued to Africa, trading manufactured goods such as rum, textiles, weapons, and gunpowder for slaves. From Africa, the ship went along the Atlantic to America, distributing slaves, and bringing agricultural products such as coffee, cotton, rice, and sugar back to Europe. The entire route typically lasted eighteen months. The slave trade ended in 1867, seventeen years after Britain began arresting slave ships.

The Atlantic Slave Trade caused many important effects on the involved parts of the world from 1492 to 1750. In both Africa and the Americas, there were large trade profits from the slave trade. For example, the triangular trade system that the Americas and Africa were a part of brought slaves to the Americas, and also indirectly provided Africa with European manufactured goods, like guns. The use

The Transatlantic slave trade was a horrific event where between 1526 to 1867 over twelve million slaves were captured and were sent from their native homes in Africa to the Americas. The African slaves that were captured over those centuries were shipped in bulk (between 30,000 a year in the late seventeenth century and 85,000 one hundred years later). Approximately, six percent of the African slaves were taken to North America in the eighteenth century and the majority of enslaved Africans were sent South America and parts of what is now Central America. In the Southern states of America, a single slave owner owned and housed about a thousand slaves. The slave population in the United States grew and this mainly due to the high fertility rate. However, due to the living environment many of the enslaved infants had a high mortality rate did not make it past their first year of life. This was the result of the children being fed food that lacked the nutrients they needed and they were breastfed too early. Due to the unhealthy environment, slaves contracted many terrible illnesses and diseases (i.e. blindness, skin lesions, Vitamin D deficiency, Diarrhea, whooping cough, etc.) that they usually succumbed to without a way to get proper treatment for them. In the mid-nineteenth century, the population of enslaved Blacks tripled from the beginning of the nineteenth

The Atlantic slave trade (1441 A.D.) refers to the transportation of black Africans from their homelands to the New World (James 1). It is estimated that all together approximately 12 million Africans were transported by force from Africa to the Americas (James 1-4). Even though many people pointed out the immorality and the cruelty of slavery, very few could afford to renounce it as a social institution. Slavery was an inseparable part of 17th-18th century world economy (James 1-4). The Atlantic slave trade was very important for the 18th century world economy because it was one of the three elements of a so-called triangle of trade. There was a three-way exchange between America, Europe, and Africa. European traders would ship textiles, muskets, and manufactured merchandize to Africa and exchange it for slaves. Then they would take slaves to the Americas and exchange them for cotton and tobacco. Finally, they would sail home to Europe where they would exchange American goods for more arms, and manufactured goods (James 1-4). On each side of the triangular trade, ships made huge profits. Plus, they provided the necessary merchandise to conquer and develop both the African continent and the Americas (James in Class Presentation). Thus, the Atlantic slave trade was vitally important to the 18th century economy.

My ancestors, along with many other African Americans living in society today are decedents of African slaves. I can remember as far back as age 5 listening to the elders in my family talk about slavery. The word slavery originated when millions of African men and women were forcible taken from their families and the familiar surroundings of their African villages. Brought here to an unfamiliar environment and forced to work on plantations in different parts of the United States, usually from sun up to sun down. the transatlantic slave trade formally began in 1518, when King Charles I of Spain sanctioned the direct importation of Africans to his colonies in the America. The transatlantic slave trade became a lucrative international

The rise of the Transatlantic Slave Trade started with the helpless souls of Africans. Many people of this time would classify slavery as a natural order, state, or fate. They believed that people were either born as a slave or would later become one because it was their predetermined destiny or fate. Later, world cultures regarded POW’s as a natural state. POW stands for Prisoners of War, and is defined as a person who is captured and held by an enemy during war, especially a member of the armed forces.

Slaves and slave trade has been a paramount part of history for a very long time. In the years of the British thirteen colonies in North America, slaves and slave trade was a very consequential part of its development. It even carried on to virtually 200 years of Coalesced States history. The slave trade of the thirteen colonies was a paramount part of the colonies as well as Europe and Africa. In order to supply the thirteen colonies efficiently through trade, Europe developed the method of triangular trade. It is referred to as triangular trade because it consists of trade with Africa, the thirteen colonies, and England.

I believe that modern America’s slavery is worse than the Trans-Atlantic slave trade in the sense that no one is exempt from slavery and trafficking, and that the people who are put through this suffering are forced to do vile things, especially because today’s society is completely ignorant to the fact that this issue still exists. Slavery and human trafficking still happens to occur under the radar, and can very well be happening right next door. Slavery is worse now because back when the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade (TAST) was thriving, everyone was aware about the existence of the institution, unlike now that the human race as a whole has become increasingly unaware that slavery and trafficking still occurs, but we choose to not think about it and ignore it, or even in some cases, people don’t even know the real severity of the slavery issue in present America. The very nature of slavery has changed and evolved into a more violent, secretive, aggressive, system that comes in different forms that all feed off the unwilling victims who are forced to endure unspeakable things. Slavery at this very moment is increasingly worse in the notion that no one is exempt from being a potential victim of slavery; gender, race, age, or national origin do not matter when it comes to holding someone captive. In addition, there have been laws and acts established in the prevention of slavery since the TAST, but they have not been enforced and the need for new and improved laws is high as

The origins of the Atlantic Slave Trade were products of Western Europe’s expansion of power that began at the beginning of the 1500’s through the 1900‘s. The main contributing European countries to the Atlantic Slave Trade were Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, France, and England. Portugal lead the movement during the 1400’s and arrived in Western Africa in hopes to find Christian allies to spread Christianity against the Muslims of Northern Africa. But they soon became more interested in trade (Hine, Hine & Harrold, 2011). Slavery, however, has existed in all cultures for thousands of years. For example, Arab merchants and West African Kings imported white European slaves. At first, the slave trade focused on women and children who

Labor exploitation was the key for the effectiveness of european expansion in the new world and define slavery as a principal component for global capitalism until it was not longer profitable. The atlantic slave trade influence europe economic growth and market development to rapidly spread through the atlantic trade. It was a intense dependence on the triangular trade that made merchants made big profits at the expense of the exploited labour abroad. Merchants were involved in all three sides of the triangle trade that allowed the transportation of slaves from Europe to Africa where goods were traded for slaves and then those slaves were brought to the Americas for the cultivation food crops and other raw materials; these later were brought back to Europe, Africa and the Americas to be sold. Resistance and revolts against the trade of slave was stronger in African areas where european demographic power was lower but “It was not until 1780s that increasing european along the west of africa coast finally drove up the price of slaves” and the overproduction of sugar in the caribbean and other raw materials lead the fall in the selling price of these products (shillington p181) european nations began to question whether the trade was still profitable or not. Britain was the first to completely abolished slavery in 1834 when manufactures found european labor in factories more efficient and less expensive than plantations. It was follow for the french colonies 1848, Cuba in

The Trans-Atlantic Trade system was created to satisfy the luxury demands made by Europeans. Europe began their search for better means of receiving their lavishes through the European migrants in the Americas. Europe received luxuries such as fur, silk, timber, sugar, rice, and tobacco from the America, and in return, the Americans received manufactured goods such as guns and furniture, as well as spices, tea, oils, and tools. Because of the growing demand for luxury items in Europe, and the decrease of Indian slave labor, Africa, and the Americans created a slave trade in return for luxuries such as rum, tools, cloth, iron, and gunpowder. Slaves were by far the biggest export of Africa and the largest import into the Americas, ultimately starting the popularity and increase of the Trans-Atlantic Trade.